She is a spunky combination of Nancy Drew and Dirty Harry, and—although a female bounty hunter—is the opposite of Domino Harvey.
After graduation, Stephanie married Dickie Orr, then promptly divorced him after discovering him in their new home, cheating on her with rival Joyce Barnhardt on their brand new dining room table.
At the beginning of the first book, One for the Money, Stephanie has been laid off from her job as a lingerie buyer, she is being forced to sell off her appliances one by one in order to pay her rent, and her car is repossessed.
When the series begins, Stephanie Plum is single and living with her hamster, Rex, in an apartment building with predominantly elderly neighbors.
She regularly visits her parents who live several miles away in the Burg for meals, "family time," and pineapple upside-down cake.
Stephanie Plum briefly describes herself in the first chapter of each book, typically mentioning her Italian-Hungarian descent, fast metabolism, with light skin, naturally curly brown hair (that she keeps shoulder-length), and blue eyes, and is 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm) tall, and roughly 130 pounds (59 kg).
He's rumored to have had romantic relationships with farm animals and is usually locked away in his office talking with his bookie; taking a snooze or having a conversation with his "Johnson".
Valerie, Stephanie's older sister who moved to California after getting married, is mentioned briefly in the first six books as being the perfect daughter.
At the age of sixteen, Stephanie lost her virginity to Morelli in the Tasty Pastry shop behind the éclair stand, after which he never called (but left quite a few flattering messages in bathroom and stadium walls around town).
In the more recent books, he often tag-teams with Ranger for her protection, much to her extreme annoyance at being shuffled back and forth between the two men like luggage.
Ranger does high-dollar or high-risk recovery for Vinnie, and sometimes lends Stephanie a hand with some of the more dangerous or slippery FTAs.
Ranger "bleeds money" every time Stephanie requires protection, which is frequently; she minds, but he does not so much—she actually appears as a line item in his budget (where she is listed under "entertainment").
More than once, she has acknowledged that she cannot ever have the full family life she wants with Ranger (he has made it clear more than once that he will not settle down), but continues to associate with him anyway—much to Morelli's dismay.
Originally born Swiss, he is described as "over six feet of gorgeous, hard-muscled, slightly tanned male" with brown eyes and thick, unruly sandy blond hair with a dangerous set of dimples.
He pops up every once in a while in Stephanie's life and always sleeps in her bed when he is in town (staying at her apartment and sometimes going over to dinner at her parents').
Stephanie has made it clear that she is not looking for a relationship (already possessing a boyfriend, to whom she is "practically married" Twelve Sharp, and another, even more mysterious man in her life, whom she has admitted she also loves), but it hardly stops Diesel from making moves—sleeping on top of her in bed, somehow stealing her bra (while she is still wearing it), etc.
But like Morelli, Diesel resorted to Pepto-Bismol worrying over Stephanie's safety in "Plum Spooky" (after telling her he was getting an ulcer because of her).
Carl the monkey is present, the villain, Gerwulf Grimoire (Wulf), and a new Diesel love interest, Lizzie Tucker, a preternatural cupcake baker.
In Finger Lickin' Fifteen, Joyce aggressively goes after Morelli (as he is then off with Stephanie) despite his desperate maneuvers to avoid her and he considers shooting her "just to get it over with."
Not even a year after they got married, Stephanie divorced him after finding him cheating on her with Joyce Barnhardt on her dining room table.
Dickie appears occasionally in the books and is a featured character in Lean Mean Thirteen when he vanishes after a public argument with Stephanie, making her a suspect in his disappearance.
After a brief career as a cheerleader for the New York Giants, and an equally brief marriage (from which she retains her married name), she has gone to work for her Mafia uncle Vito Grizoli as a "female wise guy".
He is a known "Trekkie", and he hosts a Star Trek party which is ruined when Stephanie tries to arrest a man dressed as Captain Kirk.
In Fearless Fourteen, Moon-Man appears as a character who plays an online video game called Minion Fire with Morelli's distant cousin, Mario (who is known as "Zook"), and Grandma Mazur ("Scorch") and her friends.
Salvatore Sweet is a cross-dresser who first appears in Four to Score as a person who solves a series of word puzzles for one of Stephanie's cases.
He helps Valerie and Albert Kloughn plan their wedding during Ten Big Ones and Eleven on Top, during which time he also drives a school bus.
He saves Stephanie from the Comstock Street Slayers at the end of Ten Big Ones, running over or shooting down most of the gang members with an UZI.
In Eleven on Top, Stiva, acting as his stepson (who died in the fire), threatens Stephanie, who is getting close to spoiling his plans to retrieve some loot he and some companions stole years before.
Over time, she has had to resort to a truck with a bad radiator, a mismatch of two cars called a Rollswagen, and a series of other clunkers.
Most men admire Big Blue as a classic; Stephanie hates it, considering it unwieldy and a gas hog, not to mention much too conspicuous, but more often than she likes, she finds herself driving it.